Bullet Points: Fierce Target

Bulletproof Action strives to cover a mix of classic movies (both well known and obscure) and newly released/upcoming movies and series from the world of action entertainment (both big budget productions and small scale independent productions).

Fierce Target would fall into the small scale independent category. Directed and starring Emilio Lavizzi, Fierce Target is a project conceived by Lavizzi and Tamas Nadas (who produced the film and had a part as one of the top villains in the movie).

• The Birthday Girl: The movie begins from the perspective of Mira (Chloe Gunther-Chung), a 12 year old girl who is traveling from Canada to California with her parents for her birthday. We get a peek into the family dynamic that Mira grew up in through her narration at the start of the film and we learn what a big deal it is that Mira and her parents are spending some time at a swanky hotel.
• The Disgraced Kickboxer: We meet the movie’s unlikely hero, Pietros Komos (Emilio Lavizzi) as he is at the gym training. Pietros is former European Kickboxing champion who was banished from the sport after he killed one of his opponents in the ring. Pietros moved to the United States, where he competes in an underground fight circuit and boosts cars to make his living. We also learn he has a crush on TV news reporter Carol Starr. Pietros’ training session is interrupted when he gets a call about stealing a red Ferrari from the parking lot of a certain swanky hotel.

• The Crooked Politician: With the introduction of our two protagonists out of the way it is time to meet the main antagonist, Senator Parker (Don Worley). When we first lay eyes on Senator Parker, he and his security detail are dealing with a Lothario named Jean-Pierre… Jean-Pierre has been banging the Senator’s wife and being an industrious individual, recorded their sexcapades and is now trying to blackmail the Senator for money… Parker does what any crooked politician would do, he kills Jean-Pierre via several gunshots to Jean-Pierre’s junk. Then the bad Senator tracks down his wife at a certain swanky hotel, where she was to meet Jean-Pierre for another sexual rendezvous. Senator Parker knocks on his wife’s door at the hotel, surprising her… she begs for forgiveness, but she gets sedated and then dumped off the balcony, falling to a gruesome death.
• The Swanky Hotel: Unfortunately for the Senator, a thirsty Mira, who was out getting some beverages from the vending machine in the hallway and ends up going into the wrong room, where she sees the Senator’s men dump Mrs. Parker’s body off the balcony… although it ends up being unfortunate for Mira, who suddenly finds herself on the run. Mira manages to evade Senator Parker’s security detail and makes it out to the parking lot where she hops into a certain red Ferrari that Pietros the car thief is about to drive off in… Pietros tells here to take a hike, but she pleads with him and he caves and we’ve got ourselves some high speed chase action.

• The Body Count: As if things couldn’t get any worse for Pietros and Mira, the Ferrari has a bunch of cocaine in the trunk that belongs to a drug lord named Le Prince… so now in addition to having Senator Parker’s army of goons and dirty cops after them, the unlikely duo have to deal with drug dealers too! It is no surprise with all these evil elements in play that the body count starts to rise… but the question remains will Pietros and Mira be able to avoid being two more names in the obituaries the next day?

Fierce Target was a good effort by all involved but my one real bone of contention with the movie was the underground fighting subplot that disrupted the flow of the film.

Emilio Lavizzi’s Pietros had plenty of opportunities to organically show off his fighting skills in the main plot of the movie as he was fighting off the guys chasing him and Mira (including a showdown with Tamas Nadas’ character Ivan). The underground fights felt like overkill and went on way too long. In my opinion, this portion of the movie should have been cut down or cut out completely as there was no need for this movie to clock in just under two hours when 90-100 minutes would suffice, but now I sound like Menahem Golan giving notes to John Cassavetes.

Bonus Bullet Points:

• One Question: Can action movies and their depiction of evil politicians be attributed to lower voter turnout at the polls here in the United States?
• Unexpected Quote: “Sure’d like to bury my face in that ass.”
• Consumer Cellular: Fierce Target had more flip phones than a Consumer Cellular commercial.
• Coming Soon: At this point Fierce Target does not have an official release date, but in the meantime you can check out the trailer below…